That's not quite true or I wouldn't be here telling you about German techno maestro, Justus Köhncke's new album 'Spiralen Der Erinnerung' (the memory of spirals). The thing is that I can't decide if it's the work of genius or utter tosh.
He's taken classic 70s ballads and given them what can loosely be described as a deadpan, cheesy, casio 8-bit makeover. We've got Carole King's 'It's Too Late', Janis Ian's 'At Seventeen', Paul McCartney's 'Let Em In' to name but a few. Wichita Linesman's another. Shall we chuck in 'Nobody Does It Better'? Oh, go on then. Will I buy this album? Yeah, of course.
It's a challenging album because underneath it is extremely listenable and works equally as well on an unironic sort of ambient long player. It's deceptively deep and the records chosen are those classics which some regard as cheesy but I disagree. They are of a particular time in music and that was a time at which a lot of cheesy dross was put out but these are quite rightly great songs. The only one I don't recognise is the last one although it could well be a massive German Euro Disco hit for all I know.
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